Connect every layer
Plug local energy communities directly into both distribution and transmission grids, no longer isolated islands behind a single meter.
PrototypeA pilot preview of the Synapse vision. Figures shown are illustrative.
A European Energy Community Initiative
One continent.
One living grid.
A platform that connects local energy communities to distribution and transmission grids across borders, turning Europe's patchwork of national systems into a shared, renewable, resilient network.
27
Member states
9,400+
Energy communities
44
Cross-border links
2030
Target horizon
The vision
Technical infrastructure.
A shared mental space.
A European energy community is more than wires and inverters. It is a political idea, a continent that organises its energy together, and discovers it can organise much else together too.
Bridge national systems
Reconcile divergent grid codes, market rules and voltages so electrons, and value, flow freely across borders.
Strengthen interconnectors
Reinforce existing cross-border lines and close the missing links that today bottleneck Europe's renewable potential.
Local · regional · European
Stack community structures from the village co-op to the cross-border consortium, sharing renewable resources at every scale.
Renewables-first transition
Use community-owned wind, solar and storage as the practical lever to reduce nuclear dependence where countries choose to.
Build on what exists
Most building blocks, interconnectors, regulation, technology, are already here. Implementation can move fast.
How it works
Four layers, one network.
- 01
Local communities
Households, cooperatives and municipalities pool rooftop solar, batteries, heat pumps and EVs into a single market participant.
- 02
Regional clusters
Communities aggregate at the distribution level, balancing surplus and demand across a region in real time.
- 03
Cross-border consortia
Clusters trade flexibility and renewables across interconnectors, a wind front in Czechia powering Vienna and Bratislava an hour later.
- 04
European backbone
A harmonised set of grid codes, market signals and governance turns 27 systems into one continent-wide energy organism.
Live flow
+12.4 GW
renewable capacity shared cross-border this hour
Pilot corridor
Austria ↔ Czechia ↔ Slovakia
Decades of interconnection already exist between the three grids. We build on that foundation, close the remaining technical and regulatory gaps, and turn the trilateral corridor into the proving ground for community-owned, cross-border renewables across CZ–AT, AT–SK and CZ–SK.
🇦🇹
Austria
- Hydro storage
- Alps pumped reserve
- 400 kV cross-border
- 2 to CZ · 1 to SK
- Communities ready
- 240+
🇨🇿
Czechia
- Wind potential
- Moravian highlands
- 400 kV cross-border
- 2 to AT · 3 to SK
- Communities ready
- 180+
🇸🇰
Slovakia
- Baseload + flex
- Bohunice & Mochovce NPPs
- 400 kV cross-border
- 3 to CZ · 1 to AT
- Communities ready
- 120+
Trilateral bidirectional flow
Already in place
Slavětice ↔ Dürnrohr · V424 Sokolnice ↔ Križovany · Wien-Südost ↔ Stupava
Gap to close
Harmonised community market access
Time to first pilot
12–18 months
Renewable potential dashboard
Wind, sun & storage across the corridor
Live snapshot of techno-economic renewable potential and resource quality for AT–CZ–SK. Sources: Global Wind Atlas 3.0, Global Solar Atlas 2.0, IRENA country profiles, and the most recent National Energy & Climate Plans.
🇦🇹
Austria
Alpine hydro + emerging wind
Wind @ 100m
6.4 m/s
Solar GHI
1180 kWh/m²
Hydro share
60%
RES installed
22.4 GW
Build-out to 204022.4 / 48 GW
47% of techno-economic potential delivered
🇨🇿
Czechia
Wind highlands + rooftop solar
Wind @ 100m
5.9 m/s
Solar GHI
1130 kWh/m²
Hydro share
4%
RES installed
4.6 GW
Build-out to 20404.6 / 27 GW
17% of techno-economic potential delivered
🇸🇰
Slovakia
Nuclear baseload + solar uplift
Wind @ 100m
5.2 m/s
Solar GHI
1240 kWh/m²
Hydro share
17%
RES installed
3.1 GW
Build-out to 20403.1 / 14 GW
22% of techno-economic potential delivered
Mean wind speed @ 100 m
5.8 m/s
Corridor average, viable for utility wind ≥ 5.5 m/s
Global horizontal irradiance
1183 kWh/m²·yr
Comparable to northern Italy, strong PV economics
Combined RES potential by 2040
89 GW
vs. 30.1 GW installed today
Figures are annual means at country level. Site-level resource varies; corridor interconnectors smooth diurnal and seasonal mismatch between Alpine hydro, Moravian wind and Pannonian solar.
Roadmap
Most pieces already exist.
That is the quiet good news of European energy. We do not need to invent the grid, we need to weave it together.
- Now
Map the building blocks
Interconnectors, community projects, regulatory frameworks, most pieces exist. We map them and identify gaps.
- 6 months
Onboard pioneer communities
First 50 communities across CZ and AT plug into the platform with shared market access.
- 12–18 months
Cross-border pilot
First community-to-community renewable trade across the CZ–AT–SK trilateral corridor under a harmonised contract.
- 3 years
Continental scale
Replicate the corridor model across 12 borders, accelerating renewables and reducing nuclear dependence where chosen.
Contribute to the commons
Power the project, power the community.
Synapse is a non-profit pilot. Every contribution funds open research, community onboarding and the social projects that make a cross-border energy commons possible.
Community pilots
Seed funding for local energy cooperatives joining the corridor.
Open research
Public datasets, regulatory studies and grid-code harmonisation work.
Open infrastructure
The platform itself, open-source, audited, free for communities.
Choose a contribution
Payments are not yet wired in this prototype. Contributions will be processed securely once the donation provider is connected. 100% of funds go to community and open infrastructure.
Build the grid that builds Europe.
Communities, utilities, regulators, researchers, we are assembling the founding network. Add your voice, your project, or your interconnector.
Pilot launching 2026 · CZ–AT–SK corridor